China’s exports surged 27 percent year over year to $412.4 billion in June, the strongest such growth since October 2021.
Shipments out of the country escalated from May’s 19.4 percent growth, according to China’s General Administration of Customs. The figures also exceeded the 18 percent growth forecast by economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal.
Despite being the world’s top apparel exporter, China’s overall outbound shipments are not buoyed by the category. Garments and clothing accessories increased 3.2 percent to $15.7 billion, while textile yarn and fabrics increased 12.2 percent to $13.5 billion. Footwear exports decreased 1.2 percent to $4.1 billion.
Semiconductors and computing equipment paved the way for the export demand growth amid the spike in global demand for AI hardware, while automobile shipments surpassed 1 million in a month for the first time.
China does not break out specific figures for semiconductors and computing equipment, but Julian Evans-Pritchard, an economist at Capital Economics, said the dollar values of each category jumped 122 percent and 53 percent, respectively.
Chinese exports to the U.S. have seen a rebound in recent months, rising 13.8 percent from last June to $43.5 billion. The increase slowed down from a 34.5 percent increase in May, but represents the third month in a row the U.S. has seen an annual increase in goods from China.
U.S.-bound exports from China tanked 20 percent in 2025 to $420 billion after the Trump administration widened the scope of its tariffs on the country last spring. But 2026 has been less chaotic as China’s tariff disadvantage compared to other nations has narrowed, with multiple meetings between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping appearing to cool down what had scaled to a full-on trade war between the two countries.
Among China’s other major trading partners, shipments to the European Union surged 18.5 percent on year in June to $58.3 billion, accelerating from a 7.6 percent increase in May.
Exports to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which represent China’s largest trading partner as a bloc, jumped 34.6 percent from a year earlier to $78.3 billion, up from May’s 24 percent uptick.
Outbound shipments to Vietnam escalated 39.5 percent to $22.7 billion, the largest dollar value of all the ASEAN countries measured. Goods sent to Malaysia increased 37.6 percent to $13.5 billion, while exports to Thailand jumped 35.9 percent to $12.2 billion.
Latin America saw its shipments increase 28.4 percent to $31.9 billion, while Chinese goods shipped to countries in Africa similarly swelled 28 percent to $25.1 billion.
For the first six months of the year, China’s total exports worldwide climbed 17.6 percent over 2025 first half levels to $2.1 trillion.
The export acceleration comes amid slowing economic growth throughout the country. GDP growth came in at 4.3 percent in the second quarter, decelerating from a 5 percent increase in the January-to-March period and marking the slowest growth since the fourth quarter of 2022.
That second-quarter growth came below Beijing’s full-year growth target range of 4.5 percent to 5 percent.
A slowdown in the housing sector and a challenging job market have hit Chinese consumer spending, with longtime economic pillars including infrastructure and real estate spending declining throughout the first half.
However, China’s retail sales were a surprise bright spot for June, growing 1 percent and rebounding from a 0.6 percent drop in the prior month.
Despite the economic slipups, China is seeing import growth momentum continue to build, with imports growing 36 percent in June to $286.8 billion, the largest such increase since the same month in 2021. The strong number expanding on the 27.4 percent annual increase in imported goods in May.
Even with the boost in imports, the trade surplus stood at $125.6 billion in June. This widened the sourcing superpower’s gap from $105.4 billion in May, and also surpassed WSJ-polled economists’ prior forecast of $122.9 billion.
China’s tariff escalations with the U.S. may not be entirely over due to a newly introduced proposal to place duties on buyers of Russian energy. The bill, first proposed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, would hit the top five purchasers of Russian oil with tariffs worth up to 100 percent. China is the top buyer of Russian oil and natural gas.
